Red Velvet
by xPeach-Pit
Summary: "The world has wronged us, leaving us with nothing but our endless beauty.  But upon this world which clipped our elegant wings… we shall have our revenge."   Rating details inside.
1. Prologue

AN/ Hurp Durp. Hallo! It has been quite a while since I've uploaded anything, but I think that is pretty much the story of my fan-fic-life. I've been meaning to write for ages… a good few weeks at least! But I just haven't had the inspiration, so I apologise. This fic is the product of my rather recent but nonetheless avid Madame Red fandom… which I think has formed from me playing as Ann in the 'Black Facebook Crack Group' or BBFBCG for short! Try saying that three times as fast as you can. :P  
Anyway, for fear of making my Author's note longer than the fic itself, I shall leave it here and say "Happy reading, hope you like it and please leave a comment/review!" Thank you!

**Rated M for Gore, language and perhaps smut.**

* * *

_Prologue-_

The day she met him was the day she lost herself.

It was well known that Angelina Durless had not had an easy life, the deaths in her family and her own hardships seemed to plague the woman mercilessly, but if someone were to ask anyone who knew her, they'd all say the same thing. She stood alone.  
It wasn't that she didn't appreciate the kind, gentle condolences and the frequent offers of company, but her pride always prevented her from taking it. Whenever her colleges, friends, or simply associates attempted to take pity on her, or make things easier for her in terms of her private life, she was left with the most disgusting bitter taste in her mouth. It was as if they thought she could not handle it, like she would crack beneath the pressure of her amounting disadvantages and tales of woe. But so what if she did? She had seen so many lives having been cut short, and so she was not about to allow anyone else to interfere in her own time by sticking their noses where they did not belong. There were few left who she could say she genuinely valued the company of, her dearest Ciel, Edward and Elizabeth were really all whom she cared for. There were, of course, Edward's and Elizabeth's parents, Frances and her husband… what was his name? Well, regardless… she didn't really care for them as anything else but as her nieces and nephews parents. It would pain her to see the emotional hurt that would come to their children should anything happen to them, but her sympathy wouldn't stretch to them themselves.

And so, in the many weeks which led up to Friday the 31th August, 1888, she refused -almost to the point of forcefulness- any assurance or emotional empathy she was given. Angelina couldn't help but see the underlying morbid interest, selfish lust for information and gossip that was covered so thinly by the supposedly caring charade of many who pretended to wish to help her. They didn't really care; they just wanted more to fill their dull, mundane and usual lives with. Delighting in the hardships of others, oh, how they disgusted her. But it wasn't the fact that they simply craved others misfortune, it was how haphazardly they attempted to shield their want that fuelled her distaste.  
On those last few days she almost began to feel her grip on humanity slipping away from her … but then, the feeling itself faded along with her compassion.


	2. The Scarlet Duo

Setting the bottom of the thin, china teacup into its matching saucer with a gentle _tink, _Angelina kept her steady gaze on the rim of the finely painted porcelain, gripping the arm of the dainty cup a little harder than she perhaps ought to have.

"M'lady… they think it to b-be the V-Viscount, your nephew and his b-b-butler are to attend a celebration he is holding at his m-manor in a few nights time, they mean to i-investigate him whilst they are t-there…"

The rambling mess of stuttering words stood before her, twiddling its fingers and shuffling its feet, expecting some sort of scolding for the information it had given its employer. Squeezing his abnormal emerald eyes tightly shut, his mouth contorted as he bit down on his lip to try to halt the steady trembles his whole form writhed with; Grell Sutcliff was as good an actress as ever.

"The Viscount…? How on earth did they come to that conclusion?"

Angelina raised one perfect scarlet eyebrow at her quivering butler, finding his performance to not be significant enough to mention. If he wished to play the stuttering, innocent little thing she saw before her even when they were away from prying eyes, well so be it. It wouldn't last long, anyway; Grell became bored quickly.

"I think they s-suspect him for his other underworld d-dealings, such as the slave market he hosts…"

Looking down at his gloved hands, writhing over each other, Grell risked a look over the top of his round glasses. Upon spotting his Madame's sombre expression, he yelped and jumped, quickly lowering his gaze once again to his feet.

"M-M-M-M'lady…!"

Sighing and sliding her eyes shut, resting her head in her downturned palm, Angelina –for just a second- let a flicker of malevolence reach to her face.

"I suppose that makes perfect sense… and you never know, we could be rid of two birds with one stone this way."

"M-M'lady?"

"I think I would pay good money to see the Viscount rid off, or better yet… have the pleasure of doing it myself. His manner is distasteful and gaudy; to me he is a pain to behold that'd do better to be lying cold somewhere."

From behind her closed eyes, Angelina didn't see the large grin which spread across her butler's formerly meek face, in an instant his whole manner changing dramatically. His eyes began to glitter with malice and adoration, and his teeth slid seamlessly into sharp, razor points. The act was dropped.  
Slipping across the room silently, he knelt to the floor in front of where she sat, reaching upward to take her downturned face in his gloved hands gently.  
Her eyes fluttered open, and slight surprise flickered across her face before she held his gaze steadily.

"We're so much more beautiful than any of them, Ann."

He sighed, smiling warmly with the gleeful merciless glitter still present in his gaze. He lowered his arms to lie on her lap and rested his head of long, brunette hair in-between them, closing his eyes and letting out a contented sigh, his warm breath making the fabric of her long skirt dance.  
Angelina smiled meekly; brushing one hand gently against Grell's pale cheek, barely making contact, whilst the other began to play with a strand of his silken hair, twirling it around her finger as she looked down to him.

"I know, Grell." She breathed, the normally strict and overly eloquent tone of her voice gone, replaced by a steady warmth.

"We are but two lone, heartbroken doves, their formerly perfect white feathers tainted with the crimson blood of those who disgraced them… with nothing in the seemingly bleak world to cling to but each other."

It was obvious Grell was enjoying this; as much as he tried he could not keep the excited erratic tone from his voice as he wove his overzealous tapestry of poetry.

"The world has wronged us, leaving us with nothing but our endless beauty."

Finally letting the poorly withheld glee spread across his face in a almost frightening smirk, Grell slid his eyes back open to lock once again with Angelina's, piercing emerald green to deep, rich scarlet red.

"But upon this world which clipped our elegant wings… we shall have our revenge." He purred, slipping his tongue between his lips to run across them, leaving them to shine in the midmorning light.

"Indeed we shall, my darling." She agreed, her smile bitterly matching his, with equal malice but far much more meaning.


	3. Plans

A gentle rap of knuckles on the wood of her door brought Angelina from her peaceful slumber, her eyes lazily fluttering open as the heavy oak door was slowly opened, a wide pair of seemingly scared eyes poking around about half way up.

"G-Good morning, M'lady."

As Grell peered in, obviously too worried to enter without being precisely told to do so, Angelina sat up from her bed, the rich, crimson velvet covers falling from her to gather at her waist as she rose. Delicately covering her mouth with her hand as she let out a yawn, she smoothed down the front of her white ruffled cotton nightdress. The thin fabric was not quite opaque, but the billowing fabric pooled around her arms and shoulders in such a way that is almost appeared so. Folding her hands into her lap, she gave Grell a minute nod, allowing him entrance into the room.

Pausing for a second before almost jumping in, the china perched on the silver tray in his hands rocking dangerously as he moved, Grell looked as flustered as ever. He was especially nervous in the morning, as he was yet to become even the slightest bit bored with his charade, so it was not until the evening that he seemed to calm down. His acting efforts were condensed in the earliest parts of the day, which of course let to many more careless accidents and rambling apologies.

Watching him steadily from her bed, Angelina gestured to the bedside table, thinking it better to have the tray out of her butler's hands as quickly as possible. Once he had set it down and poured her a cup of 'sugar'less tea, he made his way over to the window, opening it wide to allow the crisp morning air to enter the musky, room that was thick with sleep. The heavy curtains swayed in the breeze that entered after sweeping across the Durless Manor grounds, the morning light that persistently penetrated the heavy drapes giving the room a gentle crimson glow.

Breathing out gently as the cooled morning air ran its fingers over her bed warmed skin, Angelina let out a gentle shiver.

"Oh…! M'lady, is it too cold?" Grell practically shrieked, horrified that he should have done something wrong.

Angelina waved her hand dismissively at his concern, making him visibly relax, his arms falling from their defensive stance at his chest. Leaving her cup of tea half finished, she placed the matching china on the bedside table and patted the space next to her.

His naïve and cautious act slipping for a minute second, long enough for him so raise an eyebrow suspiciously before he slapped it back in its erratic place, Grell nervously walked over to the bedside to perch on the edge, barely taking the weight off of his feet at all.

Looking at him quizzically, Angelina pursed her lips and sighed.

"I'm not going to _eat _you."

"I-I-I… b-b-but… a-a-and…-"

Cutting his blabbering off with a wave of her hand, his hands flying to his mouth to physically stop his lips movement, Angelina rolled her eyes and carried on.

"What are the plans for today…?"

"M'lady… It is F-F-Friday… I shall be taking you to y-your P-Practise at 11 o'clock…"

Seeing his Madame's lip curl in disgust, Grell quickly moved on.

"I s-shall be at the P-Practise to c-collect y-you at 6 o'clock… and then we have the evening free…~"

The change in Grell's voice as he spoke was painfully obvious, turning from stuttering to silken in mere seconds. He leant back on the bed a little, letting his legs swing playfully before him. He watched Angelina over the rims of his glasses, his eyes hooded and his lips parted in a little smirk.

"Feel like going on a little trip?"

Resisting the urge to push him clean off the bed, Angelina narrowed her eyes at him. Was she that predictable?

"I suppose you want to take care of whomever I 'treat' today as soon as possible…?" She said bitterly, it was inevitable that they'd do so… but Grell's confidence in the routine regularity of her actions worried her, she knew of his fleeting personality.

"I see no sense in waiting." Grell beamed, looking through his eyelashes to her.

"You're getting cocky." She snapped, his grin beginning to irritate her she gripped at the covers of the bed tightly, grinding her teeth together. Why was it so easy for him to get her riled up? She always felt like somehow he was playing her, leading her in a great dance where she was always a few steps behind.

"I can afford to." He purred, reaching out and gripping her jaw in a fluid, swift movement. He smirked at her heavily, running his eyes over her scowling features with malevolent adoration. Deliberately digging his nails into her pale skin as her hands flew to the back of his neck, crushing their lips together almost violently; Grell smirked against her and wasted no time in forcing her lips apart.  
A growl forming in her throat, Angelina fought back against him viciously, their tongues battling ferociously as each desperately tried to gain dominance over the other. Biting at her lip and allowing a gleeful giggle to escape him, Grell ran his thumbs over Angelina's cheeks, before she worked her hands to his chest and pushed him back roughly.  
They broke apart, Grell with little whining pants and Angelina with a look of bitter exasperation.

"Get… out." She snarled.

Licking his lips deliberately slowly, Grell grinned and got to his feet, skipping across the room and out of the door, Angelina clutching her face in her hands as soon as she heard it click closed.


	4. The Beginning

Sitting with nothing but a large, wooden oak desk between her and what later would become her prey, Angelina sat with a clipboard in hand, looking over her seldom used glasses perched on the end of her nose to the woman before her. One leg crossed over the other, she was hardly listening to the ramblings that escaped… Angelina glanced to her clipboard to remind herself of the woman's name… Elizabeth Stride's overly rouged gape. It didn't really matter what her story was, Angelina had heard it all.

"I just can't afford it…"

"I simply don't want it…"

"I didn't mean it to happen…"

"It is just my job…"

But it all equated to the same two outcomes: the rather different slashes of two very different blades.  
Pursing her full lips into a thin line, Angelina cut off Elizabeth midsentence.

"Are you sure about this decision, Ma'am?" Oh, how it pained her to not only sit there before the ragged nymphet, but to stay on such polite terms! She wanted nothing more than to drive the very quill in her hand through Stride's neck and be done with it. But… that would wait 'til later.

"Once the procedure is done, there is nothing that can be done to reverse it."  
This was entirely true on so many levels; Stride's next words would either sign her death warrant or clear her freedom. But there was no question as to what she'd reply, there never was.

"Of course, I am sure."

Angelina set her clipboard down with a gentle click and signed the form with a few elaborate arcs before handing it to Elizabeth, who held the quill awkwardly and left her mark: a mark which might have well been inked in her own blood. Almost snatching the board back, a smile which did not reach anywhere near her crimson eyes playing on her lips, Angelina rose to her feet and gestured to the corridor.

"After you, my dear." She said, her voice steady and calm, holding the door open and then following behind to the theatre where this bloody little show would take place.

_"My profession itself deals in death, if you were to think about it… it relies on death. Without it there would be no work for someone such as myself to carry out, would be no work for me. You may ask why I do not leave my occupation, which exposes me so very readily to pain that causes my very core to ache. I shall never leave because I cannot, not when I know what I can do whilst retaining my position. It has become part of my work, the late night trips to the East End of London. If ever were to leave my practise in another's care I know they would never carry out what is essentially part of the procedure. And in my opinion, such an act of selfishness would be worse than any bloody murder I commit._  
_Death comes in many, many forms. The initial work of my practise is to arrange and carry out the organised –and seemingly moral- death of an infant. Just the existence of my occupation is proof to the sickening amount of social acceptance that such a procedure receives, and I cannot fight against this anymore passionately than I think I do. This is an accepted death, a socially tolerable death, one which many would see as nothing more than a nuisance._  
_But what follows these acceptable deaths –to any who attended the practise in which I work, at least- are ones that I believed are quite unavoidable. It will just not do to let these previous deaths go unpunished, now would it? No, and so I take the liberty of seeing to it that this is put straight. The demise of these women therefore is a necessary death. These necessary deaths are not at all tragic, either. The only sympathy I ever feel is that it had had to happen, but it is just a bitter fleeting thought that barely scrapes the brim of my consciousness."_

A few hours passed, and with a click of her heels and a passive 'good-bye', Elizabeth Stride left the practise, her burden lessened. And as the burden had left her, it became that of Angelina Durless'.

Angelina never could leave the theatre hastily, she remained in its walls for a good while even after the last drop of blood, last shimmering blade and last dirtied glove was cleared away. She stood, her back to the cold wall, her head tilted to the darkened ceiling, gently glistening silent tears making tracks on her porcelain skin. Gritting her teeth together, she refused to give in and make the slightest noise, the lump in her throat leaving her almost gasping for the breath she denied herself. Letting herself slip down against the wall 'til her knees were tucked beneath her chin, Angelina gripped at the material of her dress desperately, as if doing so would right all the oppressing wrongs which bore down upon her stronger at that moment than they had ever before.

It wasn't her fault, was it?  
She wasn't to blame, was she?

A sob bubbled violently up her throat, causing her to gasp and wrap her arms around her chest as it convulsed painfully, it felt like her very core was being hollowed out by unseen fingers.  
With a sudden, erratic movement, Angelina let out a cry, slamming her fist into the chilled floor beneath her, her wide eyes staring blankly as desperate pants escaped her clenched teeth. Hanging her head and pulling herself to her feet, her face covered by her now dishevelled crimson locks, Angelina made her way out the theatre, through her office and to the door, wrenching it open without so much as a glance upward, the cold night air rushing in and swirling her hair and clothing in perfect unison.  
A dark figure stood grinning in the doorway, his round glasses shining a bright glint which hid his emerald eyes.

"M'lady, shall we be on our way?"

Taking Grell's outstretched hand, Angelina replaced her blank mask of uncaring indifference, which to anyone who did not know her well would have been flawless. But Grell did know well, and could tell by the glint in her eye, the slight curl of her lip and the harsh edge to her breath that deep inside her a monster was dwelling, and it set his heart alight.

"M'lady is so very beautiful…" He breathed, tilting his head to the side and cupping his cheek in his palm, a look of total adoration adorning his falsely innocent features.

"Enough with the flattery, Grell! We are to go to White Chapel… immediately." Angelina near shouted, quickly adjusting her tone to one of impeccable order. Roughly drying her cheeks with the back of her gloved hand, she strode toward the awaiting carriage before her butler could reply.

"M-M'Lady…?" He stammered, bounding after her and instead of taking his seat at the reigns, diving into the carriage after her.

"Why are we not returning to the Manor first, M'lady?" He quizzed, raising an eyebrow, rather interested in Angelina's erratic behaviour.

"Because we can afford to…" She echoed him with a dangerous smirk, holding the door to the carriage open with her heeled foot.  
"Grell? Make haste… we have a fox to cull."

Letting out an excited giggle, Grell gave his Madame a quick salute, before diving out once again and jumping straight to the driving seat, his brunette ponytail whipping around his grinning face as he grasped the reigns with vigour.

"Come, seeling night~  
Scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day!  
And with thy bloody and invisible hand  
Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond  
Which keeps me pale!"

Grell quoted gleefully, crowing his Shakespearian quotations to the thick, inked night sky, throwing his arms to the heaven and bringing them back sharply. A vigorous crack of the reigns, the horses sprang into action and Grell's giggles were drowned out by the horses braying and the clatter of their heels on the cobblestones as they sped down the dimly lit road.


End file.
